Wednesday, May 14, 2008

"rough road to the mountaintop"

In her victory speech last night, Hillary Clinton used some rural imagery, including that line, to thank voters in the Mountain State for giving her 67% of the vote in the Democratic primary.

The early news analysis I heard last evening focused on her now well-documented and often-commented upon attraction to lesser-educated, working class and -- yes, rural-- voters. In other words, no wonder she won West Virginia and is likely to win Kentucky. Obama's alleged elitism may hurt him with some voters -- such as these still flocking to Hillary. I wonder, however, if her association with this less savory stratum of society has in fact helped him a great deal because most Americans are, in fact, also elitist in one way or another. Perhaps they don't want to be aligned with a candidate to whom these common folk are attracted?